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PR 18-37 Markey v. South Kingstown School Department – No Violation

Complainant alleged that the SKSD violated the APRA when it withheld certain documents pursuant to R.I. Gen. Laws § 38-2-2(4)(M) and provided other documents with allegedly improper redactions. With respect to the withheld documents, the Complainant contended that the exemption contained at R.I. Gen. Laws § 38-2-2(4)(M) applied only to "elected officials" and thus did not cover officials appointed to positions to fulfill the remainder of an elected official's term. We declined to narrow R.I. Gen. Laws § 38-2-2(4)(M) to exclude appointed elected officials holding elected positions. With respect to the contested redactions, we noted that the vast majority of the redactions were of encryption and routing data that was non-substantive. The sole document our attention was directed to was, in fact, provided in full, with only the encryption data redacted. We further noted that there were only two instances where the SKSD redacted arguably responsive information and that material was not related to the information sought. Therefore, we found no violations.